Featured Shows

Weekday

Weekend

Waiting for Romney to ‘go back and look’

07/31/12 10:46 AMUpdated 09/06/13 07:02 AM

Over the weekend, ABC News’ David Muir sat down with Mitt Romney, and brought up the still-hidden tax returns. Specifically, the reporter asked, “[F]rom what you have released and from what we have seen we know that there was one year when you paid about 13.9% tax rate. Can we clear this up by asking a simple yes or no question? Was there ever any year when you paid lower than 13.9%?”

Romney said he didn’t know, but added, “I’m happy to go back and look.”

So, how soon will Romney happily go back and look? It certainly didn’t happen yesterday – ABC News followed up with the Republican campaign, which would only say that Romney “has fully complied with U.S. law.” That’s nice, and I’m glad, but Romney also said he’d go back and look, and it’s not unreasonable to think he should keep that commitment.

The Obama campaign clearly hopes to keep the pressure on, and released this video this morning.

One other thing: I brushed past this in yesterday’s item, but when Romney talked to Muir about this, he went on to say, “I don’t pay more than are legally due and frankly if I had paid more than are legally due I don’t think I’d be qualified to become president.”

It was an odd thing to say. As Rachel explained on the show last night, “When Mr. Romney’s father disclosed all those years of tax returns when he was running, one of the revelations in this tax returns is that he did not take advantage of every loophole, every means of avoiding taxes that he could have. Wasn’t Mitt Romney in effect saying that by doing, his dad wasn’t qualified to be president?”